Thoughts, wonderings and writings from a life on the spectrum

Let’s just ignore it…because that always works so well.

Stepping out of the rantings about autism for a while, I had a frustrating moment earlier in the week concerning the gay community. There have been a few studies now that have indicated that domestic abuse is markedly higher amongst lesbians than any other combinations of partners.

No-one but those with an anti-gay agenda seem to want to talk about it. I watched as someone on a popular social media site was downvoted for even suggesting that it was an area that warranted additional studies. I’ve seen others just be shut down and called homophobic for bringing up the increased odds. The thing is, not talking about it is not going to make it go away anytime soon.

At university, I knew of two other women who were being domestically abused by the women they were dating. Neither situation involved physical harm, so the other people who knew them just accepted it as part of “dyke drama”. My partner, prior to meeting me, was in a domestically abusive relationship with a woman – what had started as two awkward sexual liaisons was now a “friendship” with all the hallmarks of an abusive intimate relationship. When my partner started going out with me, that escalated to physical abuse. Which was the point at which something was finally done.

Domestic abuse needs to be talked about. Maybe the studies showing this data have methodological flaws, or may there’s confounding variables that mean that the statistics aren’t as straight-forward as they seem (which is usually the case for statistics), but I am sure that some people are reluctant to talk about this topic because it looks like yet more ammunition for homophobes to berate and condemn our relationships – but the abuse won’t stop just because no-one is talking about it.